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The Christians know that the mathematical principles according to which the corporeal world was to be created are co-eternal with God. Geometry has supplied God with the models for the creation of the world. Within the image of God it has passed into man, and was certainly not received within through the eyes.
—Johannes Kepler (1571–1630)
If we find the answer to [why we and the universe exist], it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we would truly know the mind of God.
—Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time |
“Mr. Plex, what’s the religious significance of the number 5,342,482,337,666?”
Mr. Plex taps upon a trilithon and looks up. The sky is the color of slate now as daylight fades. The dark flowers around Stonehenge seem to come to life, and the moss on the stones takes on a ghostly lunar glow.
Mr. Plex finally turns to you. “I’m not sure.”
“How about the number 611,121?”
“Sir, did you say religious significance?”
You nod. “In the Urantia religion, a 20th century sect, these numbers have an almost divine quality. Urantia is their name for Earth.” (You pronounce it you-RAN-sha.) “According to the sect, headquartered in Chicago, we live on the 606th planet in a system called Satania, which includes 619 flawed but evolving worlds. Urantia’s grand universe number is 5,342,482,337,666.” You pause. “Satania has its headquarters at Jerusem in the constellation of Norlatiadek, part of the evolving universe of Nebadon. Nebadon in turn belongs to a super-universe called Orvonton. Orvonton and six other super-universes revolve around the central universe of Havona, the dwelling place of God.”
Theano is reclining beside an Aubrey hole, coiled in the flickering shadows. “You’ve told me about Christianity,” she says. “How does Urantia compare?”
“Urantia followers rely on a 2097-page holy book. They say it contains the Earth’s fifth revelation from God, superior to mainstream Christianity. They think it will transform the world.” You pause. “In their book, Lucifer, who rebelled against his superiors, is now the deposed sovereign of Satania, named after Satan, his first lieutenant.”
“Sir, how did they come up with 5,342,482,337,666?”
“I don’t think anyone knows. Nor does the Urantia movement disclose who wrote The Urantia Book, which mentions the number. They do believe that human minds are created at birth, but the soul does not develop until about age six. When we die, our souls survive. Jesus Christ is number 611,121 among more than 700,000 Creator Sons.”
Theano leans closer to you. “Pythagoras would have liked this religion. A numerologist’s dream.”
“Sir, do we know if 611,121 has any particularly interesting numerical properties?”
You nod. “Theano, could you hand Mr. Plex the notebook computer?”
The universe according to the Urantia movement. Pictured are seven super-universes circling around the central universe of Havona, dwelling place of God. We live somewhere in the evolving universe of Nebadon within the super-universe called Orvonton.
“OK.” She cautiously reaches into an Aubrey hole. After a few seconds she brings out a computer coated with the ashes of burned bones. She hands it to Mr. Plex who begins to type, slowly at first, but then with exponentially increasing speed.
“Sir, I’ll write a program to find the prime factors of each of the numbers. Maybe they’ll have some clues.”
After a few seconds, a speech synthesizer chip in the computer says:
611121 = 3 × 7 × 29101
5342482337666 = 2 × 829 × 1361 × 2367557
“Sir, both numbers don’t seem to have very many prime factors. How many prime factors would you expect to find for numbers this big?”
You scratch your head. “I’m not sure, but let me tell you about some amazing numerical properties of these numbers. For example, consider the digits of 611,121 one at a time:
6 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 1 = 6 × 1 × 1 × 1 × 2 × 1 = 12
And 12 plays a major role in many religions. For example, there are 12 signs of the zodiac. Christ chose 12 apostles. In the Revelation to John, the heavenly Jerusalem has 12 gates. There are even 12 tones in our modern 12-tone musical scale.”
“Mon Dieu! That’s incredible.”
You turn to Theano. Is that a trace of admiration you see in her eyes? If so, you plan to turn her admiration into adoration with your next revelation.
Before you have a chance to speak, Mr. Plex shouts out, “Mon Dieu! The factor 1361 in the grand universe number—it’s the exact year during the papacy of Gregory XI when he decided to move from Avignon to Rome, thus ending the Babylonian captivity of the Church.”
You stand up and look from Theano to Mr. Plex. “611,121 appears in a listing of decimal representation periods for 1/n for n= 1,2,3, …:
1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 6, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1,
6, 6, 1, 1, 16, 1, 18, 1, 6, 2, 22, 1, 1, 6, 3, 6, 28, 1,
15, 1, 2, 16, 6, 1, 3, 18, 6, 1, 5, 6, 21, 2, 1, 22, 46, 1, 42, 1, 16, 6, 13, 3, 2, 6,
18, 28, 58, 1, 60, 15, 6, 1, 6
In fact, 611,121 is the very first string of digits, starting with a number other than 1.”
Theano screams out, “Mon Dieu!” in an imitation of Mr. Plex. Then she pauses. “But what the hell does that mean?”
You grin. “Examining the decimal representations of fractions, 1/1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6, …, it’s not until 1/7 do we get a ‘period’ of 6 since 1/7 = 0.142857142857, which repeats every 6 digits. The next 2 in the sequence indicates that 1/11 =0.0909090 repeats every 2 digits.”
You gaze into the smoldering depths of Theano’s eyes. Your voice is deep. “Could the Urantia movement have known about the unusual characteristics of their number for Christ?” Then you whisper. “What other startling numerical characteristics do they have?”
Before Theano and Mr. Plex have a chance to think, you see bats alighting upon some of the largest stones at Stonehenge. Their black wings quiver on slender bodies. Whenever the moonlight reflects off their eyes, they glow like little neon lights. A few of the bats seem to have developed a large fold of skin between their arms and legs. When the animals jump off a trilithon, the skin balloons upward like a parachute to slow down their rate of descent.
A few bats circle overhead ever-so-slowly, as if suspended in space. Soon a few more bats join them. As the bats come closer, you catch a glimpse of their sunken faces. Their crimson eyes seem to radiate hatred and torment.
In the distance are dull pulses of thunder. You look at Theano and see goosebumps on her arms.
Stonehenge is beginning to make the blood slide through your veins like cold needles.
THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE SCIENCE FICTION
No holy Bible offered to the Western world in the past few centuries is thicker, heavier, or stranger than The Urantia Book. This 2,097-page, 4.3 lb. volume purports to be written entirely by superhumans and channeled through an unknown earthling.
—Martin Gardner, On the Wild Side
A Urantia movement is headquartered in Chicago. The members of the movement believe the revelation in The Urantia Book is superior to mainline Christianity and destined to change the world.1
Now in its tenth printing, The Urantia Book was first published in 1955 at the suggestion of surgeon William Sadler, a one-time ordained Seventh-Day Adventist minister. The Urantia movement does not disclose who wrote The Urantia Book, and Dr. Sadler has written, “We are not at liberty to tell you even the little we know about the technique of the production of the Urantia papers …” Martin Gardner notes that The Urantia Book is a mixture of Seventh-Day Adventist doctrines and Adventist heresies. One major deviation from conservative Adventism is the book’s full acceptance of evolution and the great antiquity of the earth.
The Urantia Book describes in great detail the structure of the universe and God’s administration. Countless subdeities and angels serve God. “Technical Advisors” include: Supernaphim, Seconaphim, Tertiaphim, and Omniaphim. The “Master Physical Controllers” include: Power Directors, Mechanical Controllers, Energy Transformers, Fran-dalanks, Chronoldeks, and John the Baptist. The Urantia Book also speaks of a finite deity who is evolving into the Supreme Being of all evolving universes.
The first two humans on Urantia are not Adam and Eve, but rather the twins Andon and Fonta, children of beasts. Followers of the Urantia movement do not believe in the concept of original sin.
As you told Mr. Plex and Theano, the numbers 611,121 and 5,342,482,337,666 play significant roles in the Urantia movement. Here are some additional numerical observations:
611,121 = 22 + 342 + 7812
611,121 = 153 + 523 + 553 + 673
611,121 = (1! + 3!) × ((l3 + 23 + 33 + 43) × (1! + 2! + 3! + 4! + 5! + 6!) + (1! + 2!))
611,121 =
+ 
611,121 =
+ 
611,121 =
+ 
+ 
611,121 =
+ 
+ 
611,121 =
+ 
+ 
611,121 =
+ 
+ 
Here the Greek letter sigma, Σ, represents the summation sign in mathematics, and is used to denote the sum of a series, so, for example, Σar = a1 + a2 + a3 + … + ar + … + an.
Perry Bowker from Toronto, Canada, sent me additional information of potential interest to numerologist readers:
Let us consider the Urantia number 5,342,482,337,666. If you strip away the last 666, then 5,342,482,337 is close to the human population of the Earth right about now, and 666 traditionally represents old Scratch himself, so this is code for “the world has gone to hell.”
A French mathematician on the Internet comments:
Regarding 611,121,1 seem to recall that the first examples of non-isometric isospectral surfaces of curvature –1 are close to this genus number. They were discovered by M. Ville in the ’60s.
(The mathematician is referring to a branch of mathematics called differential geometry which deals with three-dimensional curves and surfaces.)
I thank the Urantia Number Cartel, a group of friends who helped research the numerical properties of 611,121 and 5,342,482,337,666. The cartel convened in November, 1994, and included: J. Kleid, S. Frye, D. Shippee, and R. Fung. I made the startling discovery of the relation between 611,121 and the periodicity of 1/n sequences with the aid of Neil Sloane’s “On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences,” AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, New Jersey.
The program code in the Appendix shows you how to determine the prime factors of the Urantia numbers.
In this chapter, as in others, we’ve seen the prominent role that integers play in religion. However, the Urantia religion appears to attribute significance to multidigit numbers (e.g., 5,342,482,337,666), more so than any other religion with which I am familiar. It is clear that since the time of Pythagoras humans have attributed to integers certain properties and features usually attributed only to God. According to Philip Davis and Reuben Hersh, authors of Descartes’ Dream, the religious philosophies of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam suggest that God is independent of the world, and he will persist even when the world has come to an end. Many mathematicians also believe that mathematics is independent of the world, that it exists prior to and apart from the world, and when the world ends, mathematics will still exist. Moreover, Davis and Hersh note:
Insofar as Platonic mathematics is a rival of an eternal, all knowing, omnipotent God, it is not an accident that many people turn to mathematics, consciously or unconsciously, as a substitute for religion. There is a strong craving for permanence, for certainty in a chaotic world, and many people prefer to look for it within a mathematical or scientific rather than a religious context. They are, perhaps, not aware that underlying both mathematics and religion there must be a foundation of faith which the individual must himself supply.